Call for Writers: Fairy Tales for real girls/women

(Reposted from: http://debzter.livejournal.com/)

I’ve been toying with the idea of organising and editing a collection of short stories. The overall concept is to write fairy tales that feature interesting, whether admirable or flawed, female characters who are the heroes of their own stories. I want to include stories that fit into the broadest possible interpretation of the fairy tale genre: dark, humorous, modern, traditional etc. I prefer the idea of original stories with original characters as there are many revisionist fairy tales out there already but if someone has a great idea for a spin on a traditional tale or character, than that’s great.
My ideal timeline would be to have a writers meeting in the middle of the year (around June) for everyone to meet and read the stories as a group (whether first drafts or polished versions) in a spirit of mutual praise, support and constructive criticism/suggestions. Anyone who wanted to be included in the project but couldn’t attend the meeting could email me their stories.

A deadline for finished versions of the stories would be set for two months after that meeting.

Guidelines:
1. Absolutely NO naïve waifs or victimised princesses as main characters. Protagonists can be any age or species but any happy endings must be the result of the protagonist’s actions not merely being rescued by a Prince Charming type or any Fairy Godmother cheesiness (although the latter would be fine in a tale told from the point of view of a Fairy Godmother.)

2. Editorial preference would be given to tales with female protagonists although I can see how stories could have male protagonists and still be in keeping with the tone of the collection. For example a tale about Prince Charming being fed up with rescuing Princesses and finding true love with the strong and financially independent Blacksmith, Gertrude Strapping, would be entirely in keeping with the project. Obviously it is open to authors of either gender.

Comment if you are keen to be involved in the project or have further questions or thoughts.

Debbie